At the beginning of Hot Mess, the third song on Thecityisours’ third album, there’s an unintentionally meta cheerleader chant. ‘H‑O-T M‑E-S‑S / He thinks he’s got it figured out, he’s a hot mess.’ The song itself lives up to its name, its hulking riffs and barked vocals awkwardly segueing into a sprightly pop chorus that’s a complete tonal mismatch from what came before. Unfortunately, the earlier cheerleader chant befits not just the song, but the entire record. The London quartet’s ambitions are writ large – to be open-minded, destroying genre boundaries, et cetera et cetera. Even so, it’s not that novel and it’s not that well executed, either. The clunky, murmured verses of opener Shame sound disjointed next to its sledgehammer chorus, while Psycho’s mes...